Isis Unveiled: chapter II (A Deeper Philosophy)

“The better to prove to the experimenters the reality of their own impulsion, Professor Faraday placed several card-board disks, united to each other and stuck to the table by a half-soft glue, which, making the whole adhere for a time together, would, nevertheless, yield to a continuous pressure.Now, the table having turned – yes, actually having dared to turn before Mr. Faraday, which fact is of some value, at least – the disks were examined; and, as they were found to have gradually displaced themselves by slipping in the same direction as the table, it thus became an unquestionable proof that the experimenters had pushed the tables themselves.

Another of the so-called scientific tests, so useful in a phenomenon alleged to be either spiritual or psychical, consisted of a small instrument which immediately warned the witnesses of the slightest personal impulsion on their part, or rather, according to Mr. Faraday’s own expression, “it warned them when they changed from the passive to the active state.”

This needle which betrayed the active motion proved but one thing, viz.: the action of a force which either emanated from the sitters or controlled them. And who has ever said that there is no such force? Every one admits so much, whether this force passes through the operator, as it is generally shown, or acts independently of him, as is so often the case.

“The whole mystery consisted in the disproportion of the force employed by the operators, who pushed because they were forced to push, with certain effects of rotation, or rather, of a really marvelous race.

In the presence of such prodigious effects, how could anyone imagine that the Lilliputian experiments of that kind could have any value in this newly discovered Land of Giants?””